Creative Minds: Cognitive Sources of Art and Discovery
Cognitio 2013
Young researchers conference in cognitive science
Montréal, June 26th, 27th and 28th 2013
The goal of this conference is to show current (theoretical and empirical) trends in cognitive science, and to allow academic exchanges between young researchers of various disciplines interested by the same topics. Graduate students in cognitive science, robotics, biology, cognitive anthropology, psychology, linguistics, philosophy and neuroscience neuroscience will be presenting.
The theme for this year is:
The conference will be held at Université du Québec à Montréal on June 26th, 27th and 28th 2013.
Keynote Speakers
Steven Mithen, University of Reading
The Evolutionary Origins of Creativity
The human species is often distinguished from all other species, including its closest living relative the chimpanzee, by its level of creativity. While this is most evidently displayed in art and music, creativity pervades science and indeed the whole of human thought and behaviour. How and when did such creativity arise? What is its relationship to other unique human characteristics such as language and an especially large brain? The Homo genus emerged more than two million years ago since when there have been numerous species of Homo, including Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo nenanderthalensis. Did all of these humans also have creative minds? Homo sapiens, our species, evolved a mere 200,000 years ago but is the only member of the Homo genus that survives today. Could that be explained by its creative mind?
Liane Gabora, University of British Columbia
The Origin and Evolution of Creative Ideas
How does the human mind come up with new ideas? It is widely assumed that creative thought involves haphazardly generating a set of well-formed, predefined candidate ideas, and then selecting amongst them. I will introduce an alternative, referred to as the honing theory of creativity, according to which: (1) Creative individuals wrestle with issues or ideas that are ill-formed, or in a state of potentiality, which take shape by considering them from different perspectives or contexts. (2) Creative outputs are the external manifestation of the process by which an individual’s internal model of the world, or worldview, self-organizes into a more stable structure. Just as a body heals itself when wounded, elements of a body of knowledge modify each other to solve problems, reduce dissonance, or accommodate unexpected events. Most thoughts have little effect on the worldview, but the occasional thought triggers another, which triggers an avalanche of conceptual change, resulting in insight. I will present converging evidence for the honing theory of creativity from neuroscience, studies of analogy formation and creative style, a mathematical theory of concepts that incorporates their contextual, non-compositional nature, and a computer model of cultural evolution.
About Cognitio
Cognitio was founded in 2004 by Benoit Hardy-Vallée. It has been growing in popularity and influence ever since. It is now a biennial event, alternating every other year with the summer school of UQAM's Cognitive Sciences Institute.